In particular for the contacting of semiconductor components, such as chips in the so-called flip chip process, in which the semiconductor components are bonded with their terminal faces directly to the terminal faces of contact substrates, the semiconductor components are regularly equipped with elevated contact metallizations (bumps), which on their surface comprise a solder deposit in order to establish an electrically conductive and mechanically durable connection of the semiconductor components with the contact substrates by melting the solder deposits. The contact metallizations herein provide an exposed configuration of the joints defined by the solder deposits.
The formation or application of solder deposits on the contact metallizations can be done in different ways. For example, it is known to galvanically apply solder deposits, wherein the use of this method requires an adequate masking of the surface of the semiconductor component, such that the known method is correspondingly intricate. It is also known to apply solder deposits onto elevated contact metallizations via sputtering, wherein said method also requires a laborious masking of the surface of the semiconductor component.
In comparison, a method proves less laborious in which the contact metallizations with their wetting surfaces are dipped in molten solder material, which after removal of the contact metallizations from the solder material bath forms the intended solder material deposits by solidification.
However, the implementation of this per se inexpensive method proves problematic when said semiconductor components are to be equipped with solder deposits with a terminal face pattern of a particularly fine pitch, such that the individual terminal faces or the contact metallizations formed on the terminal faces only have a very small distance from each other. These spaces between the contact metallizations are often somewhere in the region of 10 μm. In the case of such small spaces a formation of contact bridges between the solder deposits of neighboring contact metallizations can occur due to the surface tension of the molten solder material. Since in the operational use of the semiconductor components this inevitably leads to component failure, semiconductor components which exhibit such contact defects must be discarded as scrap in the course of quality management. This may lead to significant economic losses.